Japanese Women Live Alone -- And Like It

A Best Seller, The Howl Of The Loser Dogs, Is A Rallying Point For A Gender Revolution.

October 1, 2004|By Anthony Faiola, the Washington Post

TOKYO -- Junko Sakai, a stylish 37-year-old sipping fresh grapefruit juice at a hip center-city cafe, insisted she did not mean to create a furor when she wrote her blockbuster book about the little-told lives of single Japanese women. Sakai said she was merely out "to clear up a few misconceptions."

But in a male-dominated culture in which a woman's success has long been based on her ability to bag a good man, Sakai's book is a rallying cry for modern single women.

"Marriage is not an institution that fits everyone," said Sakai, whose book, The Howl of the Loser Dogs, describes the advances of women once considered "losers" for not getting married.

"Modern Japanese women who have jobs . . . don't want to spend their lives cooking and cleaning for traditional-thinking Japanese men."

Japan is undergoing a major redefinition of gender roles as women enter the work force in record numbers, according to analysts. The result is the rise of financially independent Japanese women. Some luxury condos around Tokyo are being marketed strictly to successful women. The Tokyo Stock Exchange recently offered a workshop aimed at luring well-off single women to invest. And with the wedding-ring business in decline, Camellia Diamonds, a large Japanese jewelry firm, has advertisements in which a single woman boasts she no longer needs a man to treat herself to gems.

Japanese women "have discovered they can stay single, spend money more freely and have fun without having to take on the traditional responsibility of taking care of a man," said Eisuke Sakakibara, an economist at Tokyo's Keio University. "With those options available, they are asking themselves, `Why get married?' "

The percentage of singles in Japan has surpassed the percentage in other industrialized nations, including the United States, where the ranks of the nonmarried are already inflated by far higher divorce rates than in Japan. In 2003, 54 percent of Japanese women in their late 20s were single, compared with 24 percent in 1980.

About 43 percent of Japanese men in their early 30s are unmarried, double the rate in 1980. By 2020, almost 30 percent of Japanese households will be headed by singles.

The decline in marriage, in part, is a result of the protracted economic slump that began in Japan in the early 1990s, when men were less confident about their ability to support families and more reluctant to marry, according to analysts.

But academics mostly point to a shift in lifestyle choices by urban Japanese women. Even during the recession, Japanese women were heavily courted by employers initially seeking cheaper labor in the service sector.

Although Japanese women still lag women in other industrialized countries in terms of representation in the upper echelons of business and politics, they are well-established in the labor market as Japan's economy recovers.

Japanese women often have been herded into marriage out of tradition, obligation and, ultimately, financial necessity. Their access to the workplace is viewed as a breakthrough in women's rights.

A growing minority of single women have even opted to stop waiting for marriage to build their dream houses. Nagako Motomiya, 49, a senior administrator with the city of Tokyo, hired a Kyoto-based architect who published a book about homes for singles to build a $400,000 one-bedroom, three-level house in west Tokyo.

Only a decade ago, such a move would have been seen by many in Japan as shockingly self-indulgent for a woman. But the country, Motomiya said, is changing.

"In the past, it was difficult for women to have the income to live on their own," she said. "If you weren't married, you got that look from people and your parents. But not anymore, not at all."

Some Japanese bachelors are getting desperate. After 10 failed attempts to find a bride through a matchmaking service, Masayuki Kado, 39, enrolled in a new bridegroom school in Nagoya, Japan's fourth-largest city.

Kado, a solar-panel researcher, endured lessons in witty conversation, clothing coordination and good grooming habits. But Kado said these weren't his biggest hurdle. "It's difficult even after marriage. Women today no longer want to stay home," he said. "But I still want to come home after work and see my wife greeting me at the front door saying, `Welcome home, honey.' "